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Dougga’s elegant bath

Dougga or Thugga (Arabic: دقة‎) is a Roman ruin in northern Tunisia located on a 65 hectare site.

The Antonian Bath

The Antonian Bath, which dates from the 3rd century CE, was known as the Licinian Bath (after emperor Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus) and has several storeys. Louis Poinssot’s identification of the bath as dating to Gallienus’ reign on the basis of incomplete inscriptions and Dougga’s prosperity at this time has been called into question by recent research, conducted in particular by Michel Christol. Christol has suggested that the bath dates from the reign of Caracalla: this thesis has since been confirmed by an anlysis of inscriptions. Others have even suggested that the bath dates from the reign of the Severan dynasty, because of a particularity which became common a century later in the west: the columns in the northwest peristyle feature daises bearing arches.
The bath was later used for the production of olive oil at an unknown date.
The symmetrical building is medium-sized, with an area of 1700 m² excluding the palaestra, of which 175 m² are taken up by the frigidarium.The construction of the bath required work both to lower and to raise sections of the slope on which it stood, which may explain why parts of the building have been better preserved than others; the section built on raised ground has for the most part been lost.

Dougga

UNESCO qualified Dougga as a World Heritage Site in 1997, believing that it represents “the best-preserved Roman small town in North Africa”. The site, which lies in the middle of the countryside, has been protected from the encroachment of modern urbanisation, in contrast, for example, to Carthage, which has been pillaged and rebuilt on numerous occasions.

Dougga, or Thugga, is undoubtedly the most prestigious of Tunisia’s archaeological sites. Several factors contribute to its standing on the Tunisian archaeological scene: its location on a spur dominating the rich Mejerdah valley (Thugga, in the Libyc language means green), the size of the site extending over several dozen hectares and covering several historical eras, the vegetation – in particular the many centuries old olive grove surrounding it - and of course, the excellent state of conservation of most of its monuments, some of which, such as the capitol or the theatre, were “restored to their upright position” during a campaign undertaken just after the first world war by prisoners of war.Therefore, from the “dolmens” to the Byzantine fortifications, all the stages in the history of ancient Africa are illustrated on the site by outstanding monuments, buildings that figure amongst the most elegant and elaborate of the Mediterranean basin, such as the capitol, the theatre, the Lybico-Punic mausoleum, or the superb patrician villas. (Source: patrimoinedetunisie.com & wikipedia )